You'd think, but, like, the games play so much of it so straight that I feel like the story itself is meant to be taken fairly seriously despite the extreme silliness that occurs at various points. I think a lot of the criticism around MGS5 came from people realizing they were actually meant to be taking this all sort of seriously and them not being for that at all.

sure, but isn't it supposed to be campy and not quite serious? i mean, there's a character named decoy octopus ...

MGS4 is the first game in the series where one really starts to wonder what they're supposed to take seriously or not. Up till that point, MGS had been the kind of campy action trip you describe, despite having occasional moments of genuinely meaningful character development and/or commentary. But MGS4 is where both the silly and serious aspects of the series got cranked up to 11, and the entire game feels like an exercise in cognitive dissonance.

Quote from tomatobob:

I think a lot of the criticism around MGS5 came from people realizing they were actually meant to be taking this all sort of seriously and them not being for that at all.

That's part of it, but MGS5 had bigger issues with structure rather than the contents of its story. A lot of its important lore and backstory got relegated to unlockable cassette tapes, there were tons of recycled missions, and an entire chapter was cut from the game before release. MGS5's development cycle was a complete mess, and while I don't think Kojima is necessarily an innocent party, the brunt of its problems can definitely be attributed to Konami being a bunch of dickheads.

And the worst part about the whole MGS5 debacle for me is the engine and core gameplay of MGS5 are freaking fantastic, yet will never be used to their fullest potential. KojiPro and Konami LA worked their asses off to make MGS5 run and play like a dream, and it's a shame that all that effort ultimately went to waste.

Design and scenariosI needed some time to adapt to the whole 'war sneaking' in the first two episodes. Being constantly sandwiched by two armies and all. They drop you into this warzone with not so many opportunities to experiment. I got used to it, but still prefer dealing with traditional enemy patrol like MGS1-3.There's a lot of shooty shooty sections too. It's not as if other MGS games didn't have those, but they felt redundant here.The boss fights were enjoyable, though. Vamp and Ray were my favorites. Plus Act 3 had the noir stalking which was unique at least, and Act 4 was an excellent throwback.

Details?Is this game as ridiculously detailed and full of secrets as MGS1-3? I could be wrong, but MGS3 felt like it had more things affecting the stamina system than anything in MGS4. Even the codec didn't seem as packed here.

StoryI was pretty disconnected from the story, to be honest, so take this with a grain of salt. I know for die-hard fans who play MGS since the beginning it must have been an enormous deal (for better or worse), but I wasn't quite grabbed by the events here. It was neat seeing characters return, and that was it for me.The cutscenes were just too long and too many. There has to be a more concise way to tell that story. I'm aware these numbers aren't precise, but having beaten the game, the impression I have is that I only got to play 1/3 of those 17-18 hours. Next time I'll try skipping the story to see how the game flows.

I said some bad things there but the game was a Solid (!) 8/10 for me. I liked it a lot, just not as much as MGS1-3. Again, nothing set in stone, I could change my mind.

I'm planning another big MGS marathon sometime in the near future with some/all of these: